 and welcome to this episode of the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I am your host, Gwendolyn Harris. My guest today is a phenomenal contemporary jazz R&B and saxophonist, songwriter and performer with a sultry and soulful sound. He has played all of the world at different venues and festivals. Some artists he has played with include Gerald Albright, Eric Darius, Najee, The Temptations, Gail Johnson, and the list definitely goes on. I am so happy to have him here with me today. Let's welcome Mr. Tony Exum, Jr. to the show. Aloha Tony, how are you? How great, how are you? I am well. It seems like, you know, I just saw you a few days ago, you know? I know, crazy how it works, right? Yes, so for viewers, I say that because I just came back from the Hampton Jazz Legacy Festival and Tony was doing his thing. He was on stage with Nathan Mitchell and they were doing their thing on the stage. Absolutely awesome. So I thank you for being here. You were in Colorado. Yeah. So I thank you for taking the time to being here with me today. So let's get started. All right. How did you get your start in music? I was about 11 years old and when I was growing up, I had an uncle. My mom was a younger brother who was also a saxophone player. And, you know, I was watching him when I was real little, real small, you know, four or five. He went on to represent me as an army musician. So every summer when I'd come back to Colorado, I was raised in a few different places with my stepfather being an Air Force. So I'd come back to Colorado Springs for summertime, you know, so I could see my dad and see family or whatever. I'd always hang out with my uncle and watch him play, watch him perform, you know, outdoor concerts during the summer with the army band, you know, with the rock band or the funk band or the jazz group. And so one particular summer, he really just stood out. And I thought, man, I can do that too. And so I told him, I said, I want to play saxophone. I want to be like you. And he gave me his first horn. That was probably, what, 1986, 87, something like that. And so that's when I started playing. I was in middle school. I was living in Mississippi at that time. My stepfather was stationed in a Keester Air Force base. So that was home back then. And I started playing in the school band and marching band. Eventually we moved back to Colorado Springs. And that's when I got to my first jazz band at 14, my grade. And I think I really got serious a few years later after seeing David Sandborn at Algeron Concert. Oh, wow. Yeah, my dad took me to a fiddler's green, a real big, amphitheater outdoor venue in Denver, a world famous place. They used to come every summer. Now, I remember my uncle used to always go. I never went with him. He never let me go. He came back home one time with a tape. And that was called Double Vision. It was Bob James and David Sandborn out in Mississippi today, a landmark album in contemporary jazz to this day. And that was my first tape, my first, you know, I'm dating myself, tape, you know, of that music that was mine. He bought it for me. So I listened to that thing all the time. I thought I was grown, sitting in my room listening to Sandborn and Bob James. But I was drawn to the music at that point. So once I started playing in stage band in ninth grade, I wanted to learn how to solo. I wanted to learn how to play. And I started listening. I'd already been listening to jazz my whole life. But I kind of started taking away more serious at that point. And that's kind of how I got my start. So, you know, I played in off to high school, majored in music in college, a university in Denver. Studied with some great musicians there, great musicians, great, just incredible players. Just, you know, he's always had a strong tradition of great, you know, destruction in music, great program there. So that's kind of where I got my formal teaching. After that, I was probably 18 years old. I started playing professionally. I started getting hired to do things, you know, playing private stuff, playing some things in the studio with, you know, some local hip hop and R&B artists. And getting a few shows here and there. But I like a lot of artists. I started out, you know, playing on the weekends, working a day job, you know. But, you know, as I got a little older, I started opening up for some major acts that I've come to call out of screens. Mainly an old school R&B tip, but, you know, enough to give me some experience in being in front of larger people in big stages, you know, particularly the Pikes Peak Center here in town. My first big gig was the Shilights and Dell Funnix. And that was, actually, I was like 22 years ago. Year 2000 to be exact, 21 years ago. But that was the big coming out party for me, basically. I did a tribute to Grover Washington Junior, which was incredible. I only have to, I'm gonna fit like two songs in. And so, I had some older guys I've been playing with for a while that back we had, you know, we've had to practice overnight because the other band that I was in, the leader got jealous that I got the gig. So he purposely booked the band someplace else. So I couldn't use those guys. I had to throw a band together real quick to make this work. But his gig ended up getting canceled. So, you know, never forget that we stayed up all night because these guys couldn't play, but they weren't players like out there in the public like that. They just, they liked me. They were more like guys that did stuff in the studio. And the drummer was an older cousin of mine that had been playing for a while. So I dragged him and I was like, look, if you guys could do this 15 minute performance for me, it'd be incredible. Now I'll pay you, you know, the whole nine. And so I went out there, you know, 24 years old playing Grover. And at that, it was like, the name just got out there. I mean, I come from a big family in Colorado Springs. So people know my family anyway. But to see me on that stage, you know, in front of 2,000 people was big. So I kind of started the whole career, I guess you could say, as far as me considering, or taking more seriously me as an artist, you know, doing something like that. The very next year, I did the same thing, but by myself for Dennis Edwards and his temptations and Jeffrey Osborne. Wow. In between that, I did some stuff with the Manhattan. So for some reason I was getting all those opening gigs, just some great opportunities. And that really kind of started that journey, you know, kind of put the first two bricks in the road, so to speak of my path to where I'm at now. Wow, what an extensive, what an extensive path. So I can say that you're a, I want to say kind of like a military, military brat, like they used to say, because I'm a military. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an Air Force brat. I'll tell you, you know. I'm army, I'm army. So I'm not going to hold that against you either. But you know what's crazy, when I was in Germany, we lived in the stairwells, you know, it was both. It was army and Air Force. Yes. Over there, of course, two other places. Like even here, you know, there's four cars, some of them there's, Yep. Peterson Air Force Academy, Norad Street, where this is a whole military complex here. Ashley, I think Peterson's now a space force base or about to be, so changing up a little bit. But yes, it's, you get the military lifestyle though. You understand the process there. Yes, yes I do. Most definitely I do. So tell me, I know you play the sax. What other instruments? Do you play any other instruments? Yes, I play keys, piano, play some flute. Okay, so you can pick up the bass just cause I know a lot of saxophone players like to play bass cause you know, Jared Albright's an incredible bass player. My man, Elon Trotman is doing this thing on bass. So I'm like, hmm, I really respect, you know, bass guitar. So I'm thinking about just, just try to see if I could do it. I don't know if I ever do it professionally, but you know. Oh, you're a musician, you know you can do it. You know you can do it. Yeah, you know you can do it. I've been looking for a long time. So I'm like, just do it, you know, see what happens. So what music did you guys listen to in your household? In your household, what type of music did you listen to growing up? Oh man, it was a little bit of everything. You know, when we were, when I was younger, my, we were in Germany, my stepdad used to buy records a lot more than he did when I got older. But you know, we moved to Mississippi. We had a lot of radio stations to choose from. So there's a lot of good music, you know. Contemporary jazz, my mother was always into that. But I was into like part of the funk and bellic and slave and as a little kid, like barely talking, I could recite Bootsies whole, whatever. I could tell you, you throw on Pete P. Funk and I'm singing along with it. You know, spent hours and hours looking at some crazy album covers, just reading and you know, soaking all that music in. And so, you know, early hip hop. But a lot of, a lot of contemporary jazz, you know, a lot of Grover Washington Junior and Jeff Lord, Refugian, David Sanborn, George Howard, Al Jarreau, Angela Bowfield, you know, coming from my mom's side of the fence. And you know, just the stuff that was out. I mean, Prince, Michael Jackson, the Jacksons, I really liked secretly. I never admitted this before, but you know, I think in the 80s, we all kind of had to sort of get in the good mix of music. So I have to put Earth When the Fire in there. Earth When the Fire was really big in my household. Lots of that. Let's see who else. Hair bands that came out, like I used to secretly, we liked Don Jovi and Beth Leppert and Molly Crew, but I never told anybody that, you know. You know, kind of dug that stuff. You know, I like electric guitar too, you know. I was a big Jimi Hendrix fan and when I was a kid, only because they wore the costumes, I used to like kiss. I just thought it was cool because I had the wild hair and the crazy costumes and Gene Simmons sticking his tongue out and stuff. I was like, as a little boy, they're like cartoon characters to me. So, you know, I start like kiss, but only because of that. I didn't get into their music until years later, but I had a little bit of rock and roll in me too, you know. And of course, as hip hop started to progress, you know, in the 80s, I was really heavy into that. So as long as it was clean, I could listen to it in front of my parents, of course. Big new addition fan, you know, for whole nine. So, you know, with this pandemic and it looks like we're, after what I saw this weekend, you know, I know you guys are back out on the road now, which is amazing, which is great. What did you do? Because I know it was hard for all of you musicians, entertainers during the pandemic time. Okay. So what did you do during that time? To get through it, you know, to get through that difficult time. What did you do? It was a lot that I tried to do. You know, first I have to say that it was, I was referred to that period of time as the grand equalizer because it put everybody on the same plane too. Almost instantly. A few things that happened in history that were affected every human being on the planet in one way or another. So I tried not to get too down about it. What I did do musically though, this is a complete blessing. I released a single with Bandel Andrew called, Don't Run From Love. Because we had been working on the song before the pandemic and I called him up. I said, Bandel, I said, man, let's just go ahead and put that song out. Because we're going to be sitting here for a while. He's like, you think so? I was like, yeah, man. He's like, yeah, you know what you're right. Everybody's dropping new songs. So, you know, I didn't want to be lost in the sauce, so to speak. So I needed to put the new single anyway. So we released that. And in addition to that, I was able to work a little bit because with Colorado, a lot of the venues stayed open at like half capacity. Or, you know, or 30% capacity. So I had to scale down a little bit. I didn't always have a full band with me. I'd have like a trio. Or I'd do, you know, solo with tracks, you know, I got involved in this thing called curbside culture, which was brought about by a company called the Cultural Office of the Pike Speed Region. And so they picked like seven of us. So we want to try something. We want to try to offer live performance services to people on like a curbside, like outdoors. It was during the summertime, of course. In other words, I could come to your home, set up in your driveway, set up in your cul-de-sac, your backyard, your deck, and do a, you know, hour, 75 minute concert for you and your neighbors, so to speak. So they set up a website and, you know, put us all on there. And it was like myself. I was probably the only national recording artist on there, but I was like, well, look, while we're sitting at home, we're going to work and meet some new fans and make some new friends. So I don't, I don't mind. You know, we're kind of stuck, you know. So I did that all summer. And no touring, of course. I did one big concert with the group called Dotsero at the baseball stadium. That same thing, mine, you know, that's a 6,000 seater, but we have a triple 18 here in town, but we, they, they, they limited to like a thousand seats so everybody could spread out. And they had a big stage, jumbotron, the whole nine. And it felt like a big jazz fest. And so I did that on a Friday night. And I remember telling the band, I was like, I don't know when we're going to do this again. So let's have a lot of fun. This might be the last one for quite some time. So we had a good time with that. And that was pretty much it, you know, I just kind of worked my way around doing smaller or intimate shows. I was able to kind of sustain with that. And it feels good to be back out on the road, doesn't it? I was having too much fun with, and, you know, Nathan them a craze. I was laughing the whole time. We were laughing the whole time. It's like a big reunion. You know, we had all of us hadn't seen each other in a while. And so it was good to reconnect, you know, with my boys from pieces of a dream, you know, reconnect with Marion Meadows. And Nathan and I got a chance to really, you know, talk and make some things happen. Seeing Will Donato again. Had seen Will in like, oh man, three years. So that was like a big deal, you know, same with Alex and Nils. So that was the thing. It was like a family reunion, you know, and we were all just kind of a little more jovial. Cause it's like, okay, we're back. And I saw that too. I saw, I witnessed all of that. And it did look like it was, I was just so happy to see all of you together connecting and, you know, it was just fun time. This is watching you guys connect, connect back together. I should say. Right. It just, it felt great. It's like, you know, it was really some dark times. I mean, you know, we all did things that we could as far as releasing music and smaller performances while, while the pandemic was in full, you know, a little stronger, but that idea of like, what we're used to and how we're used to, you know, surviving. And it was like, okay, there might be, we might be in some really new times. This could be a long time before we see that again. It was a lot of, you know, hurry up and wait. And I remember the first part of that pandemic, it was like, okay, stay at home six weeks. And then by summertime, it should be good. Then just kept getting worse and worse. And there was more cancellations and postpones, you know, and, and hardly any touring, you know, especially in the smooth jazz community, very little that. So it was really kind of like, well, what's going to happen? You know, how are we going to navigate through this? So it's a big sigh of relief that we're able to get back out there. It just felt incredible. You know, that was the last stop on a tour I've been, you know, since a couple of weeks before that I started out in Florida and went through Atlanta and New Carolina is up to Virginia. So to cap that off with jazz legacy was just a beautiful thing. That was, it was a great experience. Like I said, I enjoyed watching all of you guys. Now there are many saxophonists out there. There's, there's a lot of them. Tell me what sets you apart from everyone else? I think the one thing that sets me apart is the way I play soprano saxophone. Okay. I have a voice on soprano saxophone that seems to be distinctive and has kind of set me apart. Not necessarily through my own observation, but through what the industry has shown me. You know, you ask Will Donato, he'll tell you I'm like the next, he said you're the next George Howard. He always calls me that. He's like, every time I see him, he's like, man, every time you play that soprano, I just, I don't know what to do. You know, he just loves it. So I've been told that by other musicians and other, other saxophone players. So I think that's the thing. And I think I also have a different, I came up playing, you know, a lot of cover bands, you know, a lot of R&B folks, you know, top 40 stuff. So I bring that energy to the stage. And so I think that's another thing too. I kind of have that kind of R&B-ish kind of a swag. I guess you could say to what I do. And I'm not the only one, I think I'm one of a few guys that kind of bring that, that energy to, to contemporary jazz. So we're going to play a clip here shortly. And just a few minutes, but I want to ask you this question. Your latest single, is it Get At You? Get At You, yes. It's Climbing the Charts, you know, and it features Desmond Motown Washington. Tell us about that, briefly tell us about that tune. And then we're going to get into that, that clip of you playing. Oh man, that tune is just, I heard the track and it's just, it just struck me. It was just funky, high energy, you know, just had a cool sound to it. So Desmond is a guy that lives here in Colorado, Spain, who's one of the most talented musicians I've ever worked with. From Motown, from Detroit. And, you know, since he was 17, 18 years old, he was just a monster in the studio, on the drums, on the keys. You know, so he's been wanting to work with me for a while. So we put that song together and I wanted to feature him because I feel like he has a voice that needs to be heard in terms of production. That's him on the piano solo on that song. He's going to produce the track. So I wanted to kind of give him a stepping stone in my world. He's already written for TLC, for Maxwell, for countless, you know, gospel artists already. So he's pretty experienced, but not necessarily on the smooth jazz side. So he gave me a great tune. Lots of energy makes you smile, makes you dance and do like this. And that's what I wanted. So we had good time with it. So set up this clip that we're going to see of you playing. Okay. That was one of my favorite shows that I did before the pandemic. That was the Winter Park Jazz Fest here in my home state, Winter Park, Colorado. We were the kickoff act on the festival. And I had the great Will Gaines on bass who you saw play for Mary Meadows, my guy and some of my local players from out here in Denver. And this is a high energy song, you know, real funky. And we were just at that point midway through the show and just having a ball, you know, at that point, you know, it was like 90 degrees and everybody's dancing. We got thousands of people out there. And all I saw was just a lot of positive energy. So that's what you're going to see in this clip. Okay. Well, let's roll. All right. And your shows are energy. We just have a little bit more time left. And I have a few more questions. And one of the questions is what advice would you give new artists coming into this industry? I would tell them that none of the business part is probably the biggest part of your success. Make sure that you're just as well versed on the business side as you are and your talent and your gift, whatever that may be. Seeing instrumentalist production, you know, songwriting and arranging, producing whatever that may be, or all of the above. Business is very much a biggest part of what's going to lead you to a path to success. It's 90% of it is business and 10% of it is fun stuff. So be well versed on that and always stay humble. Be flexible and be willing to learn and understand one most important thing. Your career is a marathon. It's not a sprint going to take some time. So enjoy that journey, you know, and be steadfast on what you do. You'll be fine. And my final questions are, what do I need to or what should we be marking our calendar for to see what projects do you have coming up? What should we be marking our calendars for? And the second part to that question would be, where can people go to find out more about you? Okay, well, let me get the easiest one first. TonyExhamJr.com is my website. You can find out about me there. And of course, social media. So Instagram, TXM Junior and Facebook, TonyXM Junior Music. If you follow me on those two pages, I'll be posting up to date on where I'm at, what I'm up to, what's on my mind, whatever the case may be. As far as what's coming up for me, I got two more tour dates. So Dallas, Texas, I'll see you Friday at the Freeman Cafe. And I'll be in Tucson with my good friend, D Lucas on the 25th at a spot called Brother John's doing a live concert with D. New single will be out by February, 2022. And to let a little cat out of the bag, I signed my first record deal in October. So the new release would be on my new label, which is a BSE recordings, Sony label based out of the East coast. Awesome. Well, congratulations on that. That is so awesome. Thank you. Well, you heard that everyone. And yet you heard, you just heard, you just saw a little snippet of him playing. So if you want to know more about Tony, just go to his website, find out where he is and go see him. I've seen him play and he's phenomenal. I'm telling you that Tony, I thank you so much for being here with me today. We're going to have to do a part two anytime you want. Yeah, we're going to have to, I've had to do part two to my shows for real. So we're going to definitely, we're going to have to definitely do a part two. Okay. You and you know, I'll get with you on that because we're going to do one for sure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you again so much for being here. And to my viewers and audience until next time. Aloha and God bless.